0. Summary
In Deliberative Democratic Tournament Elections (DTE or Bottom-up Elections), participants hold “Small Meetings” by forming 10 to 30-membered groups for face-to-face discussion, and elect several participants (10% to 40% of the total) to be either political candidates or final voters in each group.
At every Small Meeting, they discuss current issues, future vision, potential solutions and images or qualifications of ideal leaders with assistance by trained facilitators.
（Note: The number of participants in each group in this example is 30, and the election rate 10% because 3 are elected out of 30. However, these parameters can vary depending on the conditions or the surrounding setup, if/when applied for school exercise and other purposes.
For instance, even though the school has 30 students in each class, we can have 3 groups with 10 students in each group. Then each group may select 2 candidates by the election rate of 20%. When the class has 40, each group can have 20 in each of 2 groups, and can elect 30%, namely 6 candidates in each group. When the election rate is higher, chances to be elected will be higher, which provides learning opportunities to more candidates, although it takes more time and the number of tiers to come to a finally elected candidate(s).）
Those elected by the first tier of group discussions form 30-membered groups for Small Meetings again at the second tier, and in each group they elect 3 members again as candidates or final voters. Deliberative discussion will be repeated by a number of tiers until a required number of politicians or leaders can be elected. All participants in the same groups as the final politicians or leaders will be Advisers to the finally elected during their term. If 3/4 of the Advisers say “No!” to the elected in service during the term, one must step down.
If DTE is implemented, voters will gain benefits of Deliberative Democracy by overcoming the following problems in the current election systems prevailing in the world.
1) No one can tell whether ballot counting is accurately conducted. (None can see all counting.)
2) The effect of reciprocal dealings between candidates and influential groups often overrides the intentions of individual voters. (Reciprocal dealings or bribes, either financial or non-financial, largely influence the decisions of voters particularly in the developing world.)
3) Opinions of the individual voters without influential power have no chances to be heard.
4) Simple voting is against human nature of the people wishing to learn, network and exchange ideas with one another to improve the political economy of the region, the country and the world.
5) Candidates need too much sacrifice, time and money for preparation and self-promotion.
6) Surprises and gossips reported by media over-influence the voters in decision- makings.
7) The voters tend to take the short-term perspective rather than the long-term.
8) Frustrations accumulate due to one-way top-down management in politics, amounting to one of the root causes for terrorism.
9) Politicians in service must use substantial time & money for self-promotion rather than jobs in public offices. (No time to study policies, diplomacy, etc.)
10) The current prevailing election system has a logical problem. For instance one candidate stresses “Economy” as an agenda, the other “Education” as a policy, voters must compare apples and oranges.
1. Why a New System for Elections?
The modern election system prevailing in the world is based on the outdated concept of governance or management 150 or more years ago, namely too much one-way “Top-Down” neglecting potentials of the general public. Those days, there were just a limited number of the elite males with voting rights, and a limited number of industrial sectors e.g. agriculture, commerce, manufacturing, transportation and constructions.
However, in today’s world, the general public except those in a limited number of the developing countries are quite highly educated with diversified jobs in various industries, engaging much developed technologies. Accordingly, today’s politicians should establish and implement policies based on good understandings on international finance and economies, advanced technologies, complex international relations and diplomacy etc. not to mention all the industrial sectors.
In politics, overall optimization through good understandings across different sectors is a key for good administration of the government.
DTE can take advantage of all the strengths of modern management, namely “All participate”, ”Bottom-Up”, and “Kaizen (use of PDCA: Plan, Do, Check, and Act)” through “Small Meetings” which will enable good communications face-to-face throughout the societies, thereby realizing the ideal “Democracy of the People, by the People and for the People”, by upgrading politics into Kenzen (sound) status by imbedded “Kaizen” process.
(Note: At the “Small Meetings”, the participants are allowed to talk, discuss, and exchange ideas, thereby minimizing their frustrations assisted by facilitators who went through professional training. Small Meetings held repeatedly is a source of power to minimize one of the root causes for terrorism, i.e. accumulated frustrations due to neglects and ignorance on small individuals in politics.)
To be followed by “DTE: An Answer to Reduce Terrorism (B)”